Selected photos I took of the exhibitionBy gstain / August 21, 2023 The main entrance to the exhibition I think this is looking back towards the main entrance. The pictures are confusing because there were two main galleries parallel to each other The end of the first gallery, with the famous ‘Creation of Adam’ on the end wall The start of the second gallery (I think: layout confusing in the photos) L to R: The Prophet Jonah, the Prophet Zechariah, the Libyan Sibyl, the Cumaean Sibyl The Ancestors of Christ: Salmon, Ezechias, Zerubbabel, Uzziah, Jonah (notable to the secular visitor such as myself for their wonderful names …) The famous ceiling of the Sistine Chapel – in the chapel itself in Rome, 68 feet above the floor. But thanks to this superb exhibition, we are able to view it all in giant, life-size close-up The Prophet Joel. One of seven biblical prophets Michelangelo depicted, who foretold the coming of Christ The Persian Sibyl, one of five sibyls that Michelangelo selected (out of a total of 10) who foresaw the coming of the Messiah Detail of the Persian Sibyl, showing Michellangelo’s superb incisive profile of her face in dark shadow The Prophet Zechariah, who prophesied that the Messiah would come to Jerusalem The Prophet Jonah. Considered to be a prefiguration of Christ, in that he was swallowed by a whale, to be regurgiated after three days and three nights. The ‘whale’ is depicted by Michelangelo as a large fish as he clearly had no idea what a whale looked like Judith slays Holofernes. The severed head is a portrait of Michelangelo himself, his ironic comment apparently on the laborious ‘sacrifice’ he made in painting the Sistine Chapel. ‘I am greatly afflicted and living in heavy physical privation. I have no friends and want none’ Uzziah, a king in C18th, descended from David, and an ‘ancestor of Christ’. Uzziah is apparently one of the two babies shown here, but it is not clear which one David at the moment of slaying the 3-metre tall giant, Goliath The drunkenness of Noah. Here the inebriated Noah, having collapsed, naked, is mocked by his son Ham, apparently a forecast of the mockery of Christ The Prophet Ezekiel, who’s turned to read God’s message. Here we can marvel at the profile of Ezekiel’s face and the three-dimensional way Michelangelo has depicted his hand The Prophet Isiah, depicted at the exact moment that God tells him that Christ will die on the Cross. Again, our attention is drawn to the superb depiction of Isiah’s hand, frozen in time in a moment of silence. Notable also is Michelangelo’s marvellous use of colour, particularly the subtle play of yellow and lavender in the Prophet’s left sleeve Michelangelo depicts the Prophet Jeremiah in a melancholy state of mind, in daringly deep shadow. Apparently Michelangelo identified strongly with the exhausted Jeremiah as a person. Again it is suggested that the face is a self-portrait A superb detail from the Ancestors of Christ: Zerubbabel, who was one of the first generation of Jews to return home after exile. It is said that the Sistine Chapel has the same dimensions as the temple of Jerusalem that Zerubbabel reconstructed to house the tablets of the Ten Commandments. I show here the faces of his parents, the baby Jerubbabel being out of frame below them A detail from the Brazen Serpent. The picture depicts the Israelites who have become disenchanted with having to spend 40 years in the wilderness before entering the Promised Land. Their attitude angered God who punished them with poisoned serpents. However, the brazen serpent that God ordered Moses to construct, had the power to heal and protect. In this detail, the repenting faithful are turning to look at it. Another wonderful facial profile. Here Michelangelo depicts the Cumaean Sibyl as an elderly lady with a wrinkled face The Great Flood. According to Genesis, God sent 40 days of rain as a punishment for the sins of mankind, to erase all life on earth, sparing only Noah and his family. Noah’s ark is in the background, while in the foreground people struggle in vain to save themselves from the flood. A wonderfully cinematic image by Michelangelo, anticipating the Cinemascope format Another cinematic frame, here in 1:1.85 format: the Fall of Man and the Expulsion from Paradise. Here ‘movie director’ Michelangelo has first, Eve on he left, taking the fruit of knowledge from the serpent, then, right, the archangel Michael expelling the cowering sinners from the fruitful paradise into a barren wilderness Again, one of Michelangelo’s more striking and famous images: The Creation of the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth. Again Michelangelo depicts two scenes in one image, only the right hand half of which is shown here, with God separating the bright sun from the shadowy realm of the moon. (In the left half of the picture Michelangelo cleverly has God flying away from us in wind-blown robes, seen from behind, while he points down at the growth of green plants And so we come to perhaps the most famous painting in the whole history of art: The Creation of Adam. A rather lazy-looking naked Adam (in the left half of the picture), reaches out – perhaps reluctantly? … … to the finger of God – a oowerful old man with a beard, but wearing a light tunic rather than regal robes, not as distant, but as accessible to man … … God’s greatest creation, perhaps not quite fulfilling the role God gave him, always failing to bridge the gulf between them? This is my somewhat gloomy interpretation, that’s perhaps less edifying than the traditional ‘God creating life as with an electric current’. Again, a magic moment, frozen in time, for all time, by those very famous pointing fingers Finally we come to the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo 25 years after the ceiling … … The Last Judgement, containing no less than 390 living figures (the magic number 39, again, multiplied by 10) in which Christ comes to judge the living and the dead, separating ‘the Chosen Ones’ on the left from the sinners on the right, who are banished to the eternal fires of Hell. Christ is surrounded by a whirlpool of Saints, some of whom can be identified by their attributes, e.g John the Baptist on the left, by his animal skin, and St Peter on the right by his keys. Below Christ, right of centre, is St Bartholomew, who was skinned alive. The face on the skin is … a self-portrait of Michelangelo, who was again referring to his own ‘martyrdom’ in having to create this world-famous fresco when he was over 60 years of age. Christ is seen in a central role, as creator of the world, God in human form. As a commentator has said, adapting words that Michelangelo said on his death bed, ‘we are all still learning.’
